Saturday, February 05, 2011

The Sonic years

In the late 1990s and early part of this century I was one of the writers on Egmont's Sonic the Comic, the official Sonic comic licensed from Sega. As STC was primarily a light adventure title as opposed to slapstick humour I was commissioned as a writer only, not as a writer/artist. Not that I minded, as the work was plentiful and it was exciting to see my scripts illustrated by such fantastic diverse talents such as Richard Elson, Mike McMahon, Nigel Dobbyn, Andy Pritchard and others.

It was a comic that all of us involved were very proud of as it was a solid adventure comic in its own right rather than taking the easy option of being yet another licensed title full of stock images. Subsequently it ran for much longer than anyone anticipated and was one of the most successful British comics of the last 30 years.

The readers of STC were often loyal and passionate about the characters and still are, years after the comic ended. One of those old readers recently interviewed me about my work on Sonic and you can read it by clicking this link:

My brother used to get this, it was the adventure comic we grew up with, in lieu of Victor, or easily-available Commando!We'd even discuss what was happening in it at school and agonise over cliffhangers in a way that most people think children stopped doing in the 70's! (Mind you living in a small village we were a bit more old fashioned)I may have to get on Ebay and start collecting... and binding!

James, that site isn't Egmont-approved, although some of the original artists and writers have been very supportive of the endeavour (none have objected either), and Sega even linked to it on their blog at one point. Given it was a licensed title, and the artists maintained the rights to their original creations, I'm not sure what Egmont could have to do with it anyway!

About this blog:

Established in 2006, BLIMEY! is dedicated to British comics past and present. Images are copyright their respective publishers and are only used here for review purposes.

The images of comics on my blog are scanned from my own personal comics collection or, in the case of some current issues, are promotional images sent to me by the publishers. On the rare occasion when I might use an image from another site I always credit the source. If you take images I've scanned to use on your own blog/site I'd appreciate it if you'd have the good manners to show the same courtesy.

I operate zero tolerance to websites or blogs that indulge in wholesale piracy of comics. If you're a genuine comics fan, support the industry by buying the comics.

Check out my other blog too...

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About Me

I work as a professional humour comics artist and writer and have been freelancing full time since 1984, creating many characters such as TOM THUG, PETE AND HIS PIMPLE, COMBAT COLIN, BRICKMAN, ROBO-CAPERS, DEREK THE TROLL, SUBURBAN SATANISTS and others.
I've freelanced for IPC, Marvel Comics, Egmont, Panini,D.C. Thomson, and many others, covering the comics field from originated characters to licensed properties, pre-school to adult on comics such as BUSTER, OINK!, BEANO, DANDY, TRANSFORMERS, SONIC THE COMIC, TOXIC, VIZ, CiTV TELLYTOTS, LEGO ADVENTURES, HERMAN HEDNING, SWEET FA, ACTION FORCE, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, RAMPAGE, LUCKY BAG COMIC, SWIFTSURE, WARLOCK, WHITE DWARF, ACES WEEKLY, THE DAREDEVILS, THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL, and many more.
My recent comics work has included:'Team Toxic' for Egmont's TOXIC magazine'Postman Prat', 'Kid Cops' and 'The Dark Newt' for THE DANDY'Rasher', 'Pup Parade', 'Lord Snooty' and 'Ivy the Terrible' for THE BEANO.
'The Daft Dimension' for DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE.